Posted
by
Soulskillon Monday January 09, 2012 @05:14PM
from the koopa-troopas-are-terrorists dept.

SharkLaser writes "A video game developer working for Kuma Reality Games has admitted that the company has been receiving money from the CIA to design and freely distribute special movies and games with the aim of manipulating public opinion in the Middle East. Amir Mizra Hekmati, a former U.S. Marine, moved to work for Kuma after working for DARPA and has said the goal of the company was to convince people that whatever the U.S. does in other countries is a good measure. Kuma officials have declined to comment, while Hekmati himself is locked in Iran. The United States government has demanded the release of Hekmati, but Iran has sentenced him to death for spying, which he confessed to."

Seriously, all of the "evidence" in this case comes from the man's forced confession. Given Iran's record on human rights, he was most likely tortured into confessing. Why on Earth is this being reported as fact?

Disingenuous at best. There's a big difference between confirming suspected intel and turning a prisoner into propaganda. There is also a tremendous gulf between broadly applied and completely opportunistic use of it and the "graded escalation" the US goes through before utilizing distasteful tools. Of course, such fine distinctions aren't exactly helpful to The Cause, are they?

What you've just ranted about has very little to do with what I said. I wasn't talking about the person condemned to death. I was commenting on GGP's comment on Iran. Though what can you expect from an AC?

No, Torture only gets you what the prisoner believes you want to hear.

If an interrogator straps you to a chair, and tells you that they know you've been kidnapping neighborhood kids (and you know you haven't), and if you sign this confession you'll only get 10 years instead of 20, you'll tell me to fuck off and ask for a lawyer. You might even accept that it's better to go to prison for a crime you didn't commit than confess to lies.

When the interrogator gets dissatisfied with your refusal to confess, and they start cutting off fingers and toes, how long do you hold out before confessing to a lie? When they start to immerse your head in a bucket long enough that you're choking on water, or start applying sharp implements to sensitive (or irreplaceable) parts of your body, how long do you maintain the truth, rather than tell them what they want to hear?

I don't even think they need to resort to cutting off fingers and toes. That's messy and unpleasant. Plus it leaves direct evidence of the torture. That is the beautiful thing about "enhanced interrogation" (torture by any other name). Sleep deprivation, sensory overload (music for example), 24/7 bright light, 24/7 darkness, no windows, naked, cold, hot, nothing but a locked door and a drain, some food, some water, no toilet, no toilet paper. And then the daily water-boarding (with a defibrillator handy

I mean, look , torture was refined and intel gotten in the middle age, they even had a lot of forged instrument SPECIFICALLY for torture, and a whole book as "how to torture for dummy". And they found witch aplenty. That alone should tell you a LOT about torture. I assume you might be american and holding tightly onto the impression that torture is Ok in some case, otherwise you would have to admit that your country is indeed as bad as some of the less enlightened one.

There's a big difference between confirming suspected intel and turning a prisoner into propaganda

No there's not. Torture never confirms anything. Torture is a way of getting your prisoner to say what you want to hear. Confirmation bias is built into it, so it can never reasonably be used as actionable evidence. The only thing it is good for is propaganda.

We don't know what Iranian intel said, they may well have been confirming something they'd been given.

We don't know what US intel said, we have no reason to believe that any of the prisoners were being held to confirm anything. That the CIA defied a court order to preserve the video tape sessions of interrogations -- well, I don't regard that as being in the US' favour when it comes to their claims about anything. Nobody destroys evidence of their own innocence, after all. We don't know what the US does in

Your attempt at sarcasm to point out hypocrisy is disingenuous and falsely accusatory by the very fact that you are using the moral positions of two different and unrelated people, i.e. policy makers who support torture, and the GP poster. The fact that your post has been modded so highly "Insightful" indicates either a deeply flawed sense of logic in the/. community, or a childish penchant for ill thought out potshots.

Your post can only be relevant under two circumstances: 1) GP having a history of suppor

Your post can only be relevant under two circumstances: 1) GP having a history of supporting torture, or 2) Policy makers who support torture now pointing out the unreliability of Hekmati's confession. Neither is true.

Bullshit.

Option 3 - pointing out that the same people who claimed that "enhanced interrogation" was necessary when we did it will now claim that such a confession was "tortured" out of an "innocent" man by the "evil" Iranians.

Where is the source to back your claim that it is the same people who "claimed that 'enhanced interrogation' was necessary" who are now saying that "such a confession was [unreliable]"?

It seems you're making the mistake of grouping everyone in the government as one, which is the same error that you seem to want to take issue with when you mock the usage of the word "evil" as a descriptor for Iran.

Torture is evil, full stop. I've spoken against it when used by the US, and I'll condemn it here too. The fact that the nation this man was born in did something bad does not justify doing that same thing to him.

If you had bothered to look at their wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org], you would see that Kuma Reality Games suddenly took a turn a couple of years ago, designing Middle Eastern-oriented games in Arabic exclusively. You'll also see that these new games focus on things like fighting "political corruption." Seems to strongly bolster his confession. The CIA has done stuff like this for decades, of course. IIRC they even did special comic books back in the 60's with anti-Russkie propaganda that they spread behind the iron curtain.

Unfortunately, this kid decided to go into field operations too. And Iran is hunting down CIA and Mossad operatives pretty hard right now (probably pissed about all those dead nuclear scientists). I suspect the death sentence is just a bargaining ploy for Iran, though. I hope they don't actually execute him.

Just because Kuma Reality was anti curruption doesn't mean they working for the CIA. Most of the occupy wallstreet prostestors are against curruption but they are not getting checks from the CIA. Also anyone can edit wikipedia including Iran and the CIA.

The true believer believes what he wants to believe. If you want to believe that this guy had nothing to do with the CIA, that it's just a coincidence that his company suddenly started designing Arabic games, that he was just on vacation to see grandma, etc. then more power to you, buddy. I bet you think those three jews they caught on the Iranian border a while back were really just on a "nature hike" too, and that spy drone just accidentally strayed across the border, and all those Iranian nuclear scienti

Fact 3) He visited Iran through the normal channels. He told them he was a former US marine when he entered the country. He didn't enter the country with an alias or by sneaking in over the border. He used his real name in all his business dealings with the US government.

This is still just speculation, even if the company is a propaganda device, it's not necessary the CIA that is behind them. And if they were, they wouldn't just tell it to every developer. The whole point of a front company is to keep the identity of its owner a secret.

Perhaps the company was paid by the CIA. Perhaps the company changed direction and saw a market opportunity. Will we ever know?

One thing is for sure, the World needs a lot more fighting of political corruption (in every country). Transparency International (TI) seems a good place to start, as it uses locals in each country, rather than video games. I supposed it would be hard for TI to get a hold in many countries through, including Iran.

You'll also see that these new games focus on things like fighting "political corruption."

That hardly begins to cover it. As noted by Gamasutra, they created one game in 2005 called "Assault on Iran", about attacking Iranian nuclear facilities. It's described in detail here [kumawar.com] but a few excerpts quickly reveal the flavor of the thing:

Given the alarmingly advanced state of Iran's nuclear program, the US military might well consider an all-out assault against Iran's nuclear installations.

Iran's retaliation options include[...] perhaps most frightening of all, summon[ing] their terrorist allies in widespread factions like Hezbollah to initiate vicious terrorist attacks against Americans on every continent.

Iran's nuclear means and shadowy intentions cannot be ignored. The War on Terror is not about retribution for the attacks of 9/11 or taking out dictators who brutalize the innocent. It's about keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of the rogue states and non-state organizations most likely to use them...and the risk here couldn't be clearer.

I dare ANYONE to call this anything other than propaganda. And though it may not be CIA sponsored, the company has developed software for the US army in the past, so it's hardly a logical leap.
All of that said, creating propaganda shouldn't be a crime. I too hope this

It was written by SharkLaser aka DCTech aka at least one other username starting with "I" that I can't even remember, a dedicated troll. I'm starting to wonder if these are all puppet accounts actually being run by Slashdot staff to boost page views by stirring up nerd rage. The guy's an obvious troll and all his stories get approved, what am I supposed to think?

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, confessions resulting from torture are still allowed as evidence at trial. Personally, I think that sweating a suspect in an interrogation room for 8+ hours, when the cops can lie to him and spell each other off (so they're always relatively fresh), is still psychological torture. While not nearly as bad as water-boarding or other Geneva-convention-listed forms of torture, I'm not convinced that what cops regularly do isn't torture. If you think that the only way to g

Of course it is torture. Indeed, that was part of the basis of the appeals by the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four. The fraudulent "confessions" sealed the fate of the prosecution's case (the statements were shown to have been tampered with afterwards with the signatures of the defendants edited in) but the courts were utterly horrified by the police treatment - which was no different from what you're describing.

Indeed, even in a prior appeal that failed, heard by the late Lord Denning, it failed because Lord Denning ruled that torture and abuse on such a scale was too horrific to contemplate, too savage to imagine. And, no, I'm not exaggerating his remarks. He really did say that what you're describing for police behaviour was too horrific to contemplate. Lord Denning naively concluded that it was better to refuse the appeal than to even think about police cruelty. With all respect, I disagree. It is better to imagine the unimaginable so that you can stop it, or - if it's not taking place - then at least be sure that the safeguards exist to ensure it never does.

Given that torture does take place, I am of the opinion that confessions should never be allowed in court at all. Evidence collected as a result of a confession, sure, but not the confession itself. If the police can't maintain conduct of a standard better than "too horrific to contemplate", then they should not be able to directly use in trial anything that is likely tainted by such conduct. Simple as that. Eliminate the incentive. That should go for any evidence involving methods established to have suspect credibility. Dubious crime labs get the press from time to time, for example. When standards improve, remove the bar. It is the only way you will ever get the police motivated to operate in a clean manner.

IANAL, but I'm pretty sure evidence collected as a result of an illegal confession/interrogation is not admissible in the USA.

If you allowed all evidence in, regardless of how the police got the information that leads them to the evidence, you would be creating an incentive for the police to use any tactic they want, including torture, to get information from all suspects. Sure, some innocent people may get tortured, but they may just get the location of a body that they may not otherwise find.

If they aren't, why does so much of the world rely on them? Yes, America included, though they're hardly the only ones.

And if they aren't reliable (they aren't reliable, but in the interests of neutrality I'll pretend otherwise) then every nation that carries out torture, or sponsors other nations to carry it out for them, is guilty of serious crimes against humanity. Strangely, a number of these nations are not signatories to the International Court of Justice (you may even be living in one) and thus outsi

If they aren't, why does so much of the world rely on them? Yes, America included, though they're hardly the only ones.

Because most of the world, yes, America included, doesn't care about justice; they (we) care about proving that they (we) were right, whether or not that's the truth.

And if they aren't reliable (they aren't reliable, but in the interests of neutrality I'll pretend otherwise) then every nation that carries out torture, or sponsors other nations to carry it out for them, is guilty of serious crimes against humanity.

This guy is in prison in Iran. This would not be the first time that a regime has coerced people to say things that aren't true and to sign false confessions. The US has in the last decade done it also. In the US, even when there is no torture, false confessions can be extracted even in murder cases- http://www.innocenceproject.org/understand/False-Confessions.php [innocenceproject.org]. It wouldn't surprise me at all if this sort of program really did exist, but the fact that someone in Iranian custody confessed to it isn't good evidence for the claim.

They actually discussed this on NPR earlier. When applying to enter the country, he told them about his military history and asked if it would be ok. Telling Iran that you were formerly in the US army is not the kind of thing you would do if you were an actual spy.

Not to say entering Iran and telling them you used to be in the military is a good idea.

Hekmati "admitted" this while he was in Iranian custody - as reported by the Tehran Times. Given the history of the Iranian regime (they seem to arrest people for spying for Israel or the US every couple of weeks) I think we should take this with a grain of salt. Considering that making video games and infiltrating a foreign country require completely different skill sets, I find it hard to believe that the CIA would send their video game developer deep into Iranian territory. (According to the NY Times, he was visiting his Iranian grandparents.)

I'm pretty sure making pro-American video games is better than invading and occupying countries for decades at a time. I am 100% in favor of military-sponsored video games replacing our current military strategies.

Shouldn't the text be something along the lines of "An American that was visiting his family in Iran who has been sentenced to death by a Sharia court for spying on behalf of the CIA has also claimed in the same prepared statement that he was a video game developer who made games for the CIA, even though there don't seem to be more than a single game that would align itself with Western interests." I mean, let's face it. Trusting Fars (a semi-official Iranian news agency)...these guys have backed their President's view that the Holocaust didn't happen, for Christ's sake...is NOT exactly relying on an unbiased source. For Fars to complain about propaganda is like the pot calling kettle black.

even though there don't seem to be more than a single game that would align itself with Western interests.

Did you even read their Wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org]? Their last two games were both in Arabic and aimed at a middle eastern audience. And in one of them, the entire goal of the game is to fight "political corruption." That's a pretty odd turn for a company that did English speaking games exclusively until a few years ago.

No...I looked at their actual website though. Here's where we get into the concepts of "primary source" and "secondary source". Their website lists over 150 games, mostly based on FPS concepts; they have combat and wars everywhere from WWII Europe to Vietnam to the Middle East. For this, I would say that the Middle East is just another venue for the game setting, since those games don't have any kind of a majority. Oh, and also...a company that has cranked out 150 games is not exactly blowing the bell c

Apparently, not only did he work for the CIA and, according to this summary, as a video game developer, but his family has also said that he owns a linguistics company (as reported by CNN). Remember, Iran loves to arrest Americans and charge them with espionage, even if they are just a few naive hikers who got lost.

...as sympathetic as I am to the guy, since he was there to see his grandmother, he's going to have a hell of a time persuading anyone he was not working for the CIA if indeed the CIA was funding the company he worked for, and that he was aware the company was involved in psy ops*. Doesn't matter if the company wasn't part of the CIA, we know the CIA runs companies as fronts (from previous CIA scandals) and since the CIA would have to be incredibly stupid to reveal all the companies that were fronts.

Iran, therefore, is in a difficult position. The guy is essentially being paid CIA money for carrying out CIA-commissioned tasks, which is not going to go down well there no matter what. Psy ops also require some form of feedback - you can't manipulate in a vaccuum, which is a major factor in North Korea's isolation - and that means feet on the ground at some point. It must have been obvious to everyone involved (except for the poor guy involved) as to what would happen next.

I honestly doubt he really is a spy, they're generally not stupid enough to be that obvious, but I do believe he's "collateral damage" that the US considers wholly acceptable for intelligence-gathering purposes.**

*Manipulating the perception of another, rather than giving them information and free choice, is a "psychological operation" of the kind believed to be used in covert ops. Doesn't matter if it's merely the opinion of a boss or the opinion of a sponsor that's being expressed, with no military or intelligence involvement at all, it is still a psy op because it is still about manipulation and not choice. Had I not put in an explanation, but relied entirely on emotive description, that would also be psy op/manipulation. Because I am stating what is meant and why the choice of words, there is information and therefore freedom of choice and therefore it is not manipulative.

**Intelligence gathering will always involve collateral damage. You can't avoid it. Totally innocent people will inevitably be sacrificed, which is why this idea that you control your destiny is such a laugh. All nations gather intelligence from all nations (themselves as much as anyone else), all nations need to at this point in history, and therefore all nations will have wholly innocent victims. The British have been investigating a whole host of scandals and "collateral damage" from internal investigation by the police recently, after a couple of undercover operatives defected to the organizations they were spying on and blew the lid on some very shady dealings.

Totally innocent people will inevitably be sacrificed, which is why this idea that you control your destiny is such a laugh.

As much as most, if not all, of what you're saying is spot on. Why try to draw a correlation between the loss of innocent life, and a philosophical perspective like Free-Will and control of your own Destiny? It's a completely different argument.

I'm not disputing free will, but I am disputing that you can truly control your own destiny if, in the political chess matches of the world, you can be sacrificed at a moment's notice for the benefit of others. I have a hard time reconciling the idea that anyone, anywhere, in any country, can be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency (a blood cult if ever there was one) with the idea that a person can decide how things are going to end.

well yes there are some places you really don't go if you work for certain companies who have links with your government I used to work for BT and they where considered "crown forces" and therefore valid targets by the IRA - there are defiantly bits of NI I would think twice about going to even today. I certainly would not say my "Catholic" last name. (probably a few bars in Boston as well)

You are right, Iran is in a difficult position. Run by a bunch of religious zealots who believe stoning for adultery or homosexuality surely would make anyone feel like the rest of the world is out to get them. Conjuring Jew hatred to help in the Holy War begun in the 600 to help the Shi'ites overcome the Sunnis is a hard row to hoe but someone has to do it. Running sham elections to prevent the people from living in a free country is really hard, there's ballot boxes to be stuffed (local toadiies don't com

The CIA is supposed to be monitoring events and gathering intelligence to support our administration's decision making process. Ideally, it should be a neutral observer, reporting facts discovered in various nations be they good, bad or whatever. Asking the CIA to effect changes in governments or foreign groups and then asking them to report the outcome is just plain bad management. Now they'll be motivated to bias the data to make their missions appear successful. And to hide

No. But its about time. If the CIA is going to be marketing themselves and their performance to the public, then we deserve some ability to fact check their claims.

If they confined their PR to the Senate intelligence committee, I wouldn't be as concerned. We expect our representatives to audit their performance (given that committee members have the clearance to do so).

After all, the fact that he has a gun to his head, a gov. appointed lawyer (in spite of the family hiring a private one), and most likely loads of torture, has ZERO bearings on his saying these things.

Lets get it over with and just bomb Iran. All of this foreplay gets SO old. Heck, if we must, lets move an old carrier into position and allow Iran to take it out and then we cans send in loads of bombs there.

So you want to kill some random person because of his nationality if his nation does something bad? Do you think that killing of Iraqi civilians justifies the killing of American civilians? Retribution may feel good. But it accomplishes very little. At the end of the day, when you kill someone you are killing someone's son or daughter. You are killing someone' mother or father. You are killing a fellow human being.

Maintaining a healthy economy requires killing to keep industry demand and r&d working at a healthy pace. That is especially important for the American economy, since it is dominated by defense contracting work (inputs and processing, including subcontractors, etc.). Also, keep in mind that the government is similar to a company, except it is much more conservative. Companies are unable to last much longer than 100 years, however, governments have a goal of stability that should last longer than 2-3

we see how well it is working for israel. if not for the inordinate amounts of american taxpayers' money they have been gulping since their founding, they would have been overrun by 10-12 nations decades ago.

Actually when the US withheld weapons during the initial stages of the 1967 'Six Day War' the Israelis decided to create their own defense industry (and supporting scientific facilities). Now many of the innovations that people attribute to the US actually are designed in Israel (mainstream Intel CPUs, helmet-mounted sights, laser weaponry, advanced SAMs). I understand some Israeli politicians would like the US aid to stop since it comes with strings. It is not the US funding that is keeping Israel going -

If the enemy thinks the same way, as retribution they'll kill 100 of you. Which will be followed by you killing 1000 of them, them killing 10000 of you, you killing 100000 of them, them killing a million of you,... in the end, it won't matter any more who runs out of people to kill first.

It's a pretty safe bet that many Pakistanis probably [guardian.co.uk] feel the same way about us [nytimes.com], and they have nukes, too. Are you going to lead the revolution against the powers that be here in the U.S.? No? Didn't think so. Perhaps you'd better be careful what you wish for, and think through the implications of what you're saying before spouting off.

Actually, the phrase "eye for an eye" carried an original meaning of a call for just punishment which suited the crime rather than excessive or retributive punishment. That is, it was meant "only an eye for an eye" instead of "a life for an eye". This "Chicago way" of escalating responses leads to conflict, and that's not the goal of criminal justice.

In our modern times, "one death for one death" is generally excessive, especially if it's "death of an innocent for death of a 'spy'".

Which one though? Selective targeting is best for maximum desired results.

If they think snatching up one person and calling him a spy and threatening to kill him is going to make us leave the Middle East, they are very high. All it's going to do is piss us off, giving our propaganda machines more to work with. Seriously, the American war machine is desperate for a hot war to perpetuate it. By all means be stupid enough to put your balls out there so it can shoot them off.

He admitted to being a spy. Capture and possible execution is part of the job.

If I imprison you, torture you, and threaten your family, I'm pretty sure I can get you to admit to being a spy. Doesn't mean you are one. I didn't realize imprisonment and execution as a political propaganda tool came along with simply visiting family.

If he's the kind of spy who is paid by the CIA to create and distribute propaganda material (in this case, video games) to subvert a country's government, that might be exactly the kind of spy who doesn't get much interrogation training.

Is the person stationed at a US Embassy abroad who goes to all the elite social dinners with various parties of state and covertly sends intel reports back to the CIA a spy? Most would say yes.

Is the Iranian former-marine helping develop propaganda for Iranian consumption under contract with the CIA a spy?

I don't think you'd say he's definitely NOT a spy...

Death seems a bit extreme however. Deportation would seem more appropriate. And hopefully this is all just a bunch of diplomatic posturing and deportation in exchange for some other consideration is what this comes out to.

He admitted to being a spy. Capture and possible execution is part of the job.

If I imprison you, torture you, and threaten your family, I'm pretty sure I can get you to admit to being a spy. Doesn't mean you are one. I didn't realize imprisonment and execution as a political propaganda tool came along with simply visiting family.

I think it's hilarious to hear Americans complain about this practice. I suppose all the confessions that were elicited at Guantánamo Bay are completely different, and totally legit(tm).

Those confessions are the key hang-up in bringing chargea against many detainees. We wont allow tjem to be used as evidence against torture victims, but, still don't want to release them. Its a terrible black mark on the nation that we havent found a better solution than idefinote detainment, but you cam be damn sure GITMO evebtually boomerangs to destroy the credibility and freesoms of the folks that created it and allowed it to persist. I know that is shallow comfort, but hey, its not likeany modern na

Plenty of people do, and most of them don't have any problems coming or going or during their stay for that matter. Whenever you go to another country things can go bad. Just look at what Amanda Knox went through in Perugia, Italy if you don't believe me. At least in theory Italy being a EU country that sort of sham shouldn't have happened, and yet it did.

Or the US where TX in recent memory executed a foreign citizen who hadn't been informed of his right to contact the embassy when it was still early enough

I'm still not so sure about the "sham" thing with mrs. Knox. She went out of her way to make herself suspicious in any possible way. That attitude would not have gotten anyone off in the US either. She's lucky that in Italy, they don't (usually) shoot first and ask questions later. The fact they couldn't make it stick doesn't mean she didn't do it, either. However, there were errors in the investigation so she was released. She wasn't tortured either.

Well, there is a logical explanation would be that God, while all-powerful is so incredibly dumb and/or lazy that he would not do anything even if a human found a way to kill him and actually attempted it. That is why it is up to the fundies to1. Find out what God wants (since he is too lazy to say it or maybe not able to speak because of stupidity (maybe, while immortal (naturally, that is, he can still be killed, but won't die of old age), he is still susceptible to age related degradation and given that

Except that it's never about God. It's always about a charismatic individual's self interest. The only thing God does is get people to listen and then take the blame for when things don't go according to plan.